


Warp and Weft

by paperiuni



Series: Ash and Salt [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bittersweet, But No Really All Ends Well, Fluff, Interlude, M/M, Missing Scene, Side Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 20:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4450469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperiuni/pseuds/paperiuni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some months later, Dorian and Bull consider the ties that bind.</p><p>(A missing scene for <i>House of Ash and Salt</i>, set after the epilogue.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warp and Weft

**Author's Note:**

  * For [serenityfails](https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenityfails/gifts).



> For Katie, who kinda put this in my head with the whole "they're going to get married" bit in their comment. *jazz hands*
> 
> Here be spoilers for the main story! Apologies, but this will make better sense if you read it after finishing that one. <3

"I know what 'the usuals' means," Dorian says with a widening streak of exasperation. "Those go without saying. I asked if you _wanted_ something from Val Royeaux."

"You come back without my guimauves again, I'll send you back on the next ship." Bull's retort has no heat, for reasons Dorian is quick to elaborate.

"And suffer my absence for another month and a half?"

That, in turn, is a reason to take Dorian's wrist, pull him out of his packing, and kiss him. Bull should count himself lucky. It's halfway through Firstfall, on the threshold of winter, and they've hardly been apart for more than a day in the last three months. A luxury of calm times.

The idea of a longer separation still isn't an untroubled subject of levity. It shows in the way Dorian answers the kiss with sudden, slow concentration, his plans and the piles of things to be fit in his pack cast aside. Last spring was long and bitter. They both remember.

"Don't forget then." Bull lets him go, with some regret. Dorian leans away, mindful not to jog Bull's healing arm, still splinted and bound across his front. The others hope to travel fast: all good sense says Bull is better off in Skyhold instead of jouncing along muddy late-autumn roads to Jader.

Dorian would be there, though. Complaining about the same onerous weather he's lived through for four years.

"I hardly think one Tevinter merchant can dazzle me enough to impede my memory." Dorian leafs through a book, then puts it back in the heap of rejected belongings. "However promising his help is."

One of Maevaris's contacts with a mind for reform will be in Val Royeaux next month. Josephine asked, but Dorian was the one to insist on going. Then Bull took a barb-headed arrow through his right forearm while clearing out some highwaymen on the Redcliffe road and nearly undid the whole plan.

Dorian has always fretted for him. That isn't new. They've kept each other company through many a recovery period. Something has changed this time: maybe only the way Dorian curls carefully around him at night, instead of accepting the injury as a cause to sleep in his own bed; the way he not only nags at Bull to change the dressing but does it himself, hands sure and meticulous with the splint and the bandages; the way he finishes his work by the evening bell and appears behind Bull's door with a book or a deck of cards.

Bull pointed out it was, in the grand scheme of things, only a broken arm. _I know_ , Dorian sighed against his shoulder. _I'm half glad it'll keep you inside the castle while I'm gone_.

 _You_ want _me to climb the walls with boredom before you get back?_ Bull asked, and got the laugh he was aiming for in response.

 _I will make all haste_ , Dorian said, and that was that, really.

There's an ease and a sweetness to their being together these days. Bull knows his settling is not done, and neither is Dorian's grief, however quiet it lies. But day to day, between stolen kisses in the library, or breakfast atop the gatehouse when the sun rises, or those mornings when Dorian stirs with a particular smile on his sleepy face and they don't make it out of the bed until noon, something fits and holds fast.

Bull claims the book Dorian elected not to pack and entertains himself with dubious Orlesian poetry for a while. At last, Dorian tosses his winter cloak on top of his pack, claps his hands, and declares, "I suppose I'll survive on these."

"Socks, scarf, gloves?" Bull asks, his head still in the book. "It'll snow while you're out."

"Yes, yes, and yes. Don't remind me."

"You've been mother-henning me for two weeks. Just balancing the scales."

Dorian _hmphs_ as he goes over to the desk. A drawer chafes open, Dorian draws a noisy breath, and his voice drops when he speaks. "On that note, I have a favour to ask."

"Yeah?" Dropping the book on the bed beside him, Bull looks up. Dorian is holding an unassuming coil of hempen rope--humble to all appearances and here, between them, soaked with private meaning.

Dorian took it from his hand and said, _I have your troth, no?_ Bull could only agree. That is what it is: bound on his arm in the winter, stripped in the summer, never left behind.

He takes in Dorian's expression and finds warmth there, dashed with something that's not quite trepidation.

"I want you to tie this on me." Dorian's eyelids flick a time or two. Otherwise, he's assured. That mixture of rooted and airy that comes from having a centre. Something that you trust to hold you. Such as love.

Bull has to allow himself a soft, wavering moment. "Right."

"On my _arm_ ," Dorian clarifies, needless.

"Might need a hand with the knots." Oh, this is bad. He knows that and can't bring himself to care.

Sex has been, out of necessity, slow and cautious as of late. Before the night is out, Bull does mean to see that Dorian has a few gentle bruises to remember him by on the road. He was just waiting for Dorian to finish--and now there's this, a wordless weight in his chest at Dorian's request.

"I do take instruction well, with the right incentive." Dorian sits on the edge of the bed, folding a knee against Bull's thigh.

Bull tries to rise to the innuendo and ends up scooping Dorian close, three good fingers curved to the shape of his skull. "You're serious. Qunari knots on your arm. In the middle of Orlesian high society."

"To my regret I may be forced to wear shirts, as a rule," Dorian says in tones of easy audacity. Bull wants to curse him and kiss him all at once.

"Not the point."

Shit. It's not as if he's _possessive_ over Dorian. Dorian would not stand for it; he still hems around calling Bull _his_ for all that the permission has been amply given. There's no simple word for the shifting lull of closeness at which they find themselves.

Maybe there can't be. There is no country for either of them but a fortress in the cold mountains, and few words save for a language to which neither of them was born.

Dorian shifts. "Bad idea? Inopportune moment?"

"No. No, just--" Bull closes his eye. "I'm gonna need you a little more naked."

"Naturally." A trickle of relief seeps into Dorian as he makes short work of his layers. "Left or right arm, then?"

"Don't think there's any rules for this kind of thing, _kadan_." Bull mutters the word because he needs it in the moment, as an anchor, as a touchstone. The small breath it teases out of Dorian is an added relief.

He thought of Dorian wrapping his scarf or tugging his sleeves over the marks of his teeth or his fingers, the ghosts of shared need in his skin. He unspools the rope, folds it in half. Dorian watches, rapt, unspeaking. A riddle they'll resolve together.

"What'll it be? Can't wax too poetic, but I'll give it a shot."

Dorian helps him wrap the rope just below his shoulder, tugging the long trailing ends through the loop in the middle. The hemp stands out pale against his skin.

"I... had a few thoughts." That might be the first real sign of hesitation Dorian's shown. "Is one permitted to change them, over time?"

"Once you make good on them." Bull lets his fingers wander to the nape of Dorian's neck. 

Dorian's shoulders drop under his touch, loose and pensive. His mouth crooks, tightens, then settles into a wry smile.

"If you happen to have one for _homecoming_ , that'd be a start."

There are knots for perseverance and victory, for harsh journeys and dangerous tasks. Bull knew someone on Seheron who wore on her arm the hope for the distant return from war. It's not unknown, though rare, for someone to make a new pattern for a new meaning.

Dorian rests his hand on Bull's shoulder, so as not to grow tired of keeping the arm extended. Bull ties _journey_ in first, clumsy with his left hand, but Dorian lends agile fingers to the purpose, tightening the loops and knots. He follows it up with _faith_ and remembers forming the same knot across his own skin months ago.

Then, with a shortening coil of rope, he fastens the shape of _kadan_ on the outside of Dorian's arm. Three ideas in a strange set. Who would read it there?

Dorian lets out a drawn-out breath, rests his head against Bull's, and answers his question.


End file.
